Elizabeth Barrette has been involved with the Pagan community for more than twenty-five years. She served as the managing editor of PanGaia for eight years and Dean of Studies at the Grey School of Wizardry for four years. She has written columns on beginning and intermediate Pagan practice, Pagan culture, and Pagan leadership. Her book Composing Magic: How to Create Magical Spells, Rituals, Blessings, Chants, and Prayers explains how to combine writing and spirituality. She lives in central Illinois where she has done much networking with Pagans, such as coffeehouse meetings and open sabbats. Her other public activities feature Pagan picnics and science fiction conventions. She enjoys magical crafts, historic religions, and gardening for wildlife. Her other writing fields include speculative fiction, gender studies, social and environmental issues. Visit her blog The Wordsmith’s Forge http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com or website PenUltimate Productions http://penultimateproductions.weebly.com. Her coven site with extensive Pagan materials is Greenhaven Tradition, http://greenhaventradition.weebly.com.
Blake Octavian Blair is an eclectic Pagan, ordained minister, shamanic practitioner, writer, Usui Reiki Master-Teacher, tarot reader, and musical artist. Blake blends various mystical traditions from both the East and West along with a reverence for the natural world into his own brand of modern Neopaganism and magick. Blake holds a degree in English and Religion from the University of Florida. He is an avid reader, crafter, and practicing vegetarian. Blake lives with his beloved husband, an aquarium full of fish, and an indoor jungle of houseplants. Visit him at www.blakeoctavianblair
.com or write him at blake@blakeoctavianblair.com.
Life is what you make it, and Dallas Jennifer Cobb has made a magical life in a waterfront village on the shores of great Lake Ontario. Forever scheming novel ways to pay the bills, she practices manifestation magic and wildlands witchcraft. She teaches Pilates, works in a library, is an elected official, and writes to finance long hours spent following her heart’s desire—time spent in nature and on the water. She lives with her daughter and an ancient cat in a huge, happy home. Contact her at jennifer.cobb@live.com.
Magenta Griffith has been a Witch more than thirty-five years and a High Priestess for more than twenty-five years. She is a founding member of Prodea, which has been celebrating rituals since 1980, as well as being a member of various Pagan organizations such as Covenant of the Goddess. Magenta, along with her coven brother Steven Posch, is the author of The Prodea Cookbook: Good Food and Traditions from Paganistan’s Oldest Coven. She presents classes and workshops at a variety of events around the Midwest. She shares her home with a small black cat and a large collection of books.
Eilidh Grove, also known as Ellen Coutts Waff, FSA Scot, is a folklorist, singer, and herbalist in the ancient Celtic tradition. She sings with Fol-de-Rol, a British folk trio, performing yearly at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. She has lived in Middlefield, Connecticut, for thirteen years; previously she lived in the Baltimore/Washington area where she was a staff nurse at the Baltimore Birth Center. She has a particular interest in “enchantment”—the art of magical singing/poetry—and has been active in the Wiccan, Pagan, and Druid community since 1978. Ellen is a Druid with Ord na Darach Gile, Celtic Reconstructionist Druids, and founding member of The Druid Grove of Two Coasts. She is working on the gardens at Talcott House, her 1742 home in Connecticut. Ellen and her daughter, Meg, own Laurel Brook Studios, which specializes in art clothing, costuming, and beading.
April Elliott Kent has been a professional astrologer since 1990. She is the author of Astrological Transits (Fair Winds/Quarto, 2015), The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology (Alpha/Penguin, 2011), and Star Guide to Weddings (Llewellyn, 2008). April’s writing has also appeared in the Mountain Astrologer and Dell Horoscope magazines and in Llewellyn’s Moon Sign and Sun Sign books. She lives in San Diego, California. Her website is BigSkyAstrology.com.
Susan Pesznecker, aka Moonwriter, is a mother, writer, college English teacher, nurse, and hearth Pagan living in northwestern Oregon. She holds a master’s degree in nonfiction writing and loves to read, watch the stars, camp with her wonder poodle, and work in her own biodynamic garden. Sue is a cofounder of the Ars Viarum Magicarum, an online school of magick (http://magicalconservatory.com/), and cofounder of the Druid Grove of Two Coasts (https://www.facebook.com/groups/DruidGroveofTwoCoasts/). She’s the author of Gargoyles (New Page, 2007), Crafting Magick with Pen and Ink (Llewellyn, 2009), and The Magickal Retreat: Making Time for Solitude, Intention & Rejuvenation (Llewellyn, 2012). She also regularly contributes to many of the Llewellyn annuals. Visit Sue on her Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/susan.pesznecker.
Linda Raedisch lives and writes in northern New Jersey. Her favorite time of year is Yule, followed by late spring and early fall. All the rest are either too hot, too cold, or too humid. Linda’s first book, Night of the Witches: Folklore, Traditions and Recipes for Celebrating Walpurgis Night, has been translated into French. (Linda really ought to be able to read it, but she’s forgotten a lot since high school.) Her second book, The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year, is the result of a lifelong search for all that is untoward about her favorite holiday. Linda is currently at work on her third book for Llewellyn, due out in August 2017. (If you’ve guessed it’s about Witches, you’re not on the wrong track.)
Diana Rajchel has practiced Wicca, and alongside it witchcraft, for close to twenty years. Ever a pragmatist, she believes magic can and should be used to make life happier, healthier, and sometimes even a little bit easier. She has most recently written two books for Llewellyn, on Mabon and Samhain. She is located in the San Francisco Bay Area where she pursues magic, ecstatic dance, belly dance, and urban spirit work.
Suzanne Ress has been practicing Wicca for about twelve years as the leader of a small coven, but she has been aware of having a special connection to nature and animal spirits since she was a young child. She has been writing creatively most of her life—short stories, novels, and nonfiction articles for a variety of publications—and finds it to be an important outlet for her considerable creative powers. Other outlets she regularly makes use of are metalsmithing, mosaic works, painting, and all kinds of dance. She is also a professional aromatic herb grower and beekeeper. Although she is an American of Welsh ancestry by birth, she has lived in northern Italy for nearly twenty years. She recently discovered that the small mountain in the pre-alpine hills she and her family and animals inhabit was once the site of an ancient Insubrian Celtic sacred place. Not surprisingly, the top of the mountain has remained a fulcrum of sacredness throughout the millennia, transforming from Celtic “Dunn” to Roman fortress to its current form—Catholic chapel, and this grounding in blessedness makes Suzanne’s everyday life especially magical.
Doreen Shababy lives a witchy, rural lifestyle near a blink-of-an-eye town in northern Idaho. She is the author of The Wild & Weedy Apothecary: An A to Z Book of Herbal Concoctions, Recipes & Remedies, Practical Know-How & Food for the Soul, published by Llewellyn. Before that she produced a small but widely circulated “kitchen-table” journal by the same name, focusing on wild plants for food and medicine. Doreen’s work has also appeared in many Pagan publications. She has led weed-walks and demonstrations for all ages and has forever worked with natural foods in both career and on the domestic scene, from teaching preschool cooking classes and developing a series of gluten-free baking lessons to fixing soup for anyone who will have some. Doreen loves creating with fabric, and is occasionally known to pick up a crochet hook. She has been a student and practitioner of hands-on healing arts for over twenty years, including Source Connection Therapy, Reiki, and other intuitive therapies. Doreen’s approach to magick is practical and spontaneous, and she is devoted to feminine spirituality. She is primarily a soloist requiring frequent doses of social contact for fun and recreation. Doreen and her husband produce and sell herbal extracts, healing balms, and other products from their kitchen apothecary.
An award-winning author, feng shui consultant, and intuitive counselor, Tess Whitehurst presents ancient, sacred, and highly empowering wisdom in an extremely friendly and accessible way. She’s written six books that have been translated into nine languages, and her articles have appeared such places as Writer’s Digest, Whole Life Times, and Law of Attraction magazine. She’s appeared on morning news shows on both Fox and NBC, and her feng shui work was featured on the Bravo TV show Flipping Out. Tess lives with her longtime boyfriend, Ted Bruner, and their magical black cat, Solo, in a cozy, incense-scented, twinkle-light-lit country house near Columbia, Missouri. Visit her at www.tesswhitehurst.com.
When she’s not on the road or chasing free-range hens, Natalie Zaman is trying to figure out the universe. She is the coauthor of the Graven Images Oracle deck (Galde Press), and the YA novels Sirenz and Sirenz Back In Fashion (Flux) and Blonde Ops (St. Martin’s Press). Her work has appeared in Llewellyn’s Magical Almanac, FATE, SageWoman, and newWitch magazines, and she currently writes the recurring feature “Wandering Witch” for Witches and Pagans magazine. Find Natalie online at http://nataliezaman.com or at http://broomstix.blogspot.com, a collection of crafts, stories, ritual, and art she curates for Pagan families.